Task-centred activity micro-context

In the task-centred activity micro-context, students work on some task that has been assigned to them by the teacher. For most of the on-task time, the students work in pairs or small groups, and the teacher is not involved or only involved minimally in the accomplishment of the task. However, teachers monitor the activity, patrolling the room and approaching groups either on their own initiative or when invited to do so, usually when a member of the group asks a question. Thus, as a teaching practice, there is teacher-student interaction in this micro-context, as the usually brief interactions do not signal a change in activity to a new micro-context, but are designed to facilitate the successful accomplishment of the task in this micro-context. In this extract, from a first year technology lesson, the students have been working in small groups to begin making a wooden toy. Prior to the teacher’s approaching the table, the group had been engaged in their own private interaction around the task of sawing the wood for the toy. The teacher has been moving around the room, interacting with students at different tables, sometimes responding to questions, at other times interacting with the group on his own initiative, as is the case here. The teacher approaches their table and engages in this exchange with them:

(6.11) TECHLSN2

T: you are working very good. you know (.) 1

they aren’t doing any previous (.) drawing (.) 2

you are doing very well (1.0) 3

what’s your drawing (.) 4

is this one the toy you wanna do? 5

+ students nod affirmatively

6

(1.8) 7

you start (.) saw it, (.) 8

and then you do another one just like this one. 9

(1.2) 10

and then in the meanwhile 11

you can saw the arms (.) and the legs. 12

SS: okay 13

In this short extract, the teacher carries out a range of teaching actions. At lines 1 and 3, he gives the group positive feedback on the way they are doing the task. He highlights

the fact that another group, unlike them, hasn’t done a drawing to prepare for the making of the toy (line 2). At lines 4 and 5, he asks questions about the students’ intentions, as a pre-sequence to the advice-giving sequence at lines 8-12, which the students acknowledge with ‘okay’. In terms of pedagogic actions, this could be seen as an example of dynamic assessment, as the teacher not only gives the students feedback on their performance so far, but provides mediation in the form of guidelines for successful completion of the task. However, in spite of the sophisticated and effective use of the L2 as a teaching tool in this extract, the teacher, on viewing this sequence as a video vignette, gave a rather negative evaluation of his own competence in this micro- context generally:

(6.12) VSC2

I: can you talk about this kind of situation 1

a little bit. 2

T: no that’s quite often (.) over (1.0) 3

in at the beginning of when they are starting 4

building whatever making whatever they have to 5

make in the workshop .hh 6

they don’t know how to get started with the thing 7

I: mm 8

T: they don’t know where to start from 9

or they don’t know 10

so <I (1.8) should help every work every team 11

work> fo- more particularly. (1.5) 12

a::m (1.0) I may tell you (.) this is where I find 13

myself not so:: (1.8) prepared to teach in English 14

because ↑those kinds of things 15

when you’re in the classroom I manage 16

with the language I have to use very very well. 17

but here I find myself that I don’t find a certain 18

word that’s >°I don’t know°< (.) 19

because it’s quite quite particular specific 20

language you have to use 21

((quoting voice)) you have to put this thing 22

into this hole and drill this or whatever and this 23

(.) a(h)nd I don’t find myself (1.5) comfortable 24

in the workshop speaking in English. 25

I would like to and that’s .hh 26

where I want to to learn more English 27

and to practise more and more true English 28

but that’s a thing and it’s very difficult (0.5) 29

I am meant I am supposed to make them 30

speak to each other in English 31

I: mm hm 32

The interviewer’s question at line 1 projects a script-formulation discourse unit, and this is indeed how the teacher responds. Thus, at lines 3-12, he script-formulates the

description as an example of a frequent situation in the workshop - the students find it difficult to get started, and he has to intervene to help the different groups (lines 11-12). However, this long DU, especially from lines 13-32, is extremely significant from the point of view of one aspect of practical knowledge: knowledge of self, and, more specifically, orientation to language as a matter of competence, in this case his own competence. That it is an orientation to his own competence in general, rather than an evaluation of this particular piece of interaction, can be seen in the way the whole DU from lines 13-32 is script-formulated as a description of a repeatedly occuring situation, not a one-off. At line 14, he describes himself as ‘not so prepared to teach in English’ in the workshop situation, as opposed to the classroom, where he ‘manages quite well’ (lines 16-17). He then goes on, at lines 18-23 to outline the reason for this lack of competence: the specific nature of the language required to interact in this micro- context, and goes on at lines 24-25 to describe his own feelings of discomfort in this situation. At lines 26-28, he switches to a future orientation, to action he would like to take to improve his own L2 competence, and ends the DU with an objective evaluation at line 29 (‘it’s very difficult’) and an orientation to a contextual factor: his obligation to have the students use English among themselves (30-31). The teacher constructs an account of his practices in which he distinguishes between interactions in different situations, building a description of himself as differently competent in each situation, and identifying actions he can take to remedy the situation. That he does so with respect to one micro-context, task-based activity, suggests that CLIL teachers can orient to different interactive needs in using the L2 as a tool for teaching and learning.